Masifilo, who played at Stanford from 2007-2011 and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in November, claims Te'o was always asking Stanford players if they knew his mystery girlfriend.

I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

1. This story was better back when I thought his first name rhymed with panty.2. My favorite thing to come out of this generous and hilarious story so far is the Twitter exchange between Trump and Deadspin. Twitter Link

ongbok:KingsleyZisou: ongbok: NaziKamikaze: At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

I too don't understand ND's motivation to support Teo. If he is a fraud, throw him under the bus and protect the institution. I however don't think the school is "in on it." What would they have to gain from such a scheme? Maybe publicity from the Heisman campaign but that only happened in year 4 of this charade.

I think Teo had convinced the administration that he is a victim. Pathological liars will spin any situation to suit their needs. They are very good at convincing people. Just my theory though.

/this while thing is hilarious//Catfish and Lance Armstrong are doing backflips with joy today

Or he may have been really scammed by someone. And if he was it probably involved him sending them money. It could have been somebody that befriended him on Facebook or whatever and used his naivety to lead him on and con him into sending them money over the years.Then decided to go for the big score and threatened to expose the whole thing if he didn't pat up. This has been known to happen.

Sorry but I don't buy the Te'o is a victim angle. He goes to great length to keep this scam going. If he's a victim why would he do that? Once the jig is up on the scam, he can get help. What incentive does he have to perpetuate it other than the original extortion? Hell he should be sabotaging it. Instead, he helps keep it rolling along.

He has a preexisting relationship with the perp. Does that mean Manti was an easy mark? That's possible. It's also possible they corroborated.

Who blackmails a college student? Even a future pro athlete is currently poor. A scam with less effort on a better target would yield more immediate results.

Sorry but too much of this sorry points to Manti for him to be a victim.

For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

----------

I'm an agnostic, so this is no defense of the Mormon or Catholic faith, but your entire premise here is, well, to be nice, "off base".

Mormons and Catholics promote chastity for heterosexuals, as well. The statement that they are "forcing" the LGBT group to "promote chastity" is in line with their religious beliefs for all of their members/students, not just teh ghey ones. As a matter of fact, it just so happens to be a tenet of MANY religions. No sex before marriage. They ask the LGBT group to adhere to those same tenets if they wish to attend the same school? The horror! Why do you have a problem with this? Do you believe LGBT have some promiscuity gene that unfairly disadvantages them from adhering to the same tenets? LGBTers are less capable of being chaste than a heterosexual person? That sounds a little prejudiced! Do you have something against LGBTers?

I don't agree with the whole chastity notion, myself, but I sure don't see a problem with "forcing" (sounds so evil) the LGBT group to follow the same rules as the rest of the school population, with regard to the religious doctrine. When they graduate and move to California or some other state that allows same-sex marriages, they can get married and have teh sex, or promote "non-chastity" in any forms they wish. But, the horror that you are implying? Meh.

Is it a shame that LGBTers can't get married in ANY state? Or, that it took 20 years for the group to be allowed to form? Sure. I could grant you those. But that they are now being persecuted because they have to follow the same tenets as the rest of the school population? Um. No. They're not kicking them out of the school because they are LGBT, mind you, but you can't go to Notre Dame and then have a gay pride soft-core porn parade out on the square, or otherwise promote promiscuity. Not what you signed up for. That is allowed other places, go there and promote "non-chastity" there. There are many places where it is tolerated and even welcomed. Notre Dame isn't one. Notre Dame doesn't allow promotion of "non-chastity" anywhere on campus by any heterosexual group.

Now that I explain your argument, you probably realize how silly it sounds. You probably didn't mean to say that, right? Probably should have left that part out of the argument, right?

Now, that that is out of the way, I would be VERY surprised if this was done at all because Manti is gay. It looks, though, entirely as he was "in on it". Someone attempted to use Occam's Razor to justify that he is gay, but for that to be true, for Occam, this would have to be the most likely excuse, which it is not.

Serial dating - none ever getting "serious", using the chastity cloak of his religion, a Hollywood Beard etc. Those are FAR more likely methods for concealing one's homosexuality. A complex internet ruse that draws a lot of attention to your sexuality is probably not the simplest explanation.

Guy gets tackled, gets up and asks players if they know his girlfriend and if they've seen his baseball.

Puts a new spin on "special" teams.

After the game when they are all shaking hands, usually the Hawaii/Samoans guys get together and say hi, the bible thumpers get together, the hip hopsters say holla holla holla, and the Jew is usually passing out business cards.

AliceBToklasLives:Lando Lincoln: Lost Thought 00: ND canceled the interview with Te'o for today. I guess they still need more time to flesh out their cover story

All of you need to get lives.

Says the Total Fark guy.

Anyways, still unanswered: Why is this an official Notre Dame matter?

I'm assuming because Notre Dame's athletic department bought into the story, and was partly responsible for gearing up the media blitz that sold that story. After all, winning the Heisman has become just as much about the campaign as the on-field performance. It's absolutely idiotic that the award has reached that level of lobbying, but that's how things are now.

srhp29:I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

Well, the lying part may have been out of mild embarrassment; it might be hard for a big bad football player to admit to people he has a super goddamn "i wanna marry this girl" crush on a glorified pen pal.

halfof33:"Thirdly, our investigators through their work were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."

Whoever finds this first is going to be Internet famous.

I think you are grossly overestimating the Internet's interest in this.

Killer Cars:srhp29: I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

Well, the lying part may have been out of mild embarrassment; it might be hard for a big bad football player to admit to people he has a super goddamn "i wanna marry this girl" crush on a glorified pen pal.

Yeah, that was a thought I have had too. He didn't want to go around saying he never met this girl he is in love with after three years.

UNC_Samurai:AliceBToklasLives: Lando Lincoln: Lost Thought 00: ND canceled the interview with Te'o for today. I guess they still need more time to flesh out their cover story

All of you need to get lives.

Says the Total Fark guy.

Anyways, still unanswered: Why is this an official Notre Dame matter?

I'm assuming because Notre Dame's athletic department bought into the story, and was partly responsible for gearing up the media blitz that sold that story. After all, winning the Heisman has become just as much about the campaign as the on-field performance. It's absolutely idiotic that the award has reached that level of lobbying, but that's how things are now.

Yeah, I forget that they lobby like their players are up for an Academy Award. And it's been going on a long time. Back in the early 70s, Notre Dame's PR department actually changed the pronunciation of Joe Theismann's name so it rhymed with Heisman.

Bartleby the Scrivener:SlothB77: Arizona Cardinals fullback Reagan Mauia said he met Lennay Kekua in person during an outreach trip with Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers and others in June 2011.

I am curious if Polamalu was with Mauia when Mauia met Kekua.

Word on Pittsburgh radio was that Polamau was somehow involved, but it's not clear if he was with Mauia when Mauia met Kekua. There might be some sort of relationship between Polamalu and Te'o, but that does not mean that Polamalu had any information about Maiua or Kekua. It's unfortunate that we cannot ask Seau about the relationships between Polamua, Te'o, Mauai and Kekua, so we may have to ask Manu Tuiasosopo or Tui Alailefaleula.

Well, I saw some of it on Twitter last night. I assume it is what they speak of.

Link

Take from that what you want.

Well that's interesting.

Now there is this...

Link

person behind LennayKay acct claims they are going to release a statement around 11AM...they do not mention a time zone.

Okay, this is my tinfoil hat prediction.... Tuiasosopo and Teo were in on it the whole time. Now that they've been exposed, the fake Lennay (Tuiasosopo) will say that Te'o was innocent and a victim of the hoax in order to protect Te'o.

Plans to meet, but then changes and excuses from the girl at the last minute.

Tragedy after tragedy, incremental and encroaching suspension of disbelief, incident after incident.

Oh, and look. There's a 'twin brother' who spent time talking with Te'o's family. Why yes, we sound alike on the phone, sorry about that.

I'll bet we'll find out that the 'twin brother' is the one who told Te'o's parents that Te'o and the girlfriend had actually met a few times.

And the reason the media is now trying to portray Te'o as a perpetrator of the hoax is because some of them added their own spin without checking their facts and they're interested in covering their own rear ends at the expense of this young man.

blarkseymark:For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

----------

I'm an agnostic, so this is no defense of the Mormon or Catholic faith, but your entire premise here is, well, to be nice, "off base".

Mormons and Catholics promote chastity for heterosexuals, as well. The statement that they are "forcing" the LGBT group to "promote chastity" is in line with their religious beliefs for all of their members/students, not just teh ghey ones. As a matter of fact, it just so happens to be a tenet of MANY religions. No sex before marriage. They ask the LGBT group to adhere to those same tenets if they wish to attend the same school? The horror! Why do you have a problem with this? Do you believe LGBT have some promiscuity gene that unfairly disadvantages them from adhering to the same tenets? LGBTers are less capable of being chaste than a heterosexual person? That sounds a little prejudiced! Do you have something against LGBTers?

I don't agree with the whole chastity notion, myself, but I sure don't see a problem with "forcing" (sounds so evil) the LGBT group to follow the same rules as the rest of the school population, with regard to the religious doctrine. When they graduate and move to California or some other state that allows same-sex marriages, they can get married and have teh sex, or promote "non-chastity" in any forms they wish. But, the horror that you are implying? Meh.

Is it a shame that LGBTers can't get married in ANY state? Or, that it took 20 years for the group to be allowed to form? Sure. I could grant you those. But that ...

You know what, I apologize. i was not aware of ND's general chasitity policy. I mistakenly though that it was only for this LGBT group. I do believe that the point still stands that (presuming he's gay, yes we don't know this, its just the alternative is that he's a complete scumbag) he's been in a culture that has at best told him to hold in and ignore his sexual urges for the rest of his life. At worst, you're getting into him being an abomination before God and needing to be "cured". I'm not going to presume where on the scale his life was since I don't know him. Creating a fake girlfriend would not be all that unreasonable.

/it still feels a bit wrong to me since the same people who came up with the chastity policy almost certainly against gay marriage, allowing them to say they treat everyone equal while the reality is different

Anyone else look at Tuiososopo's pic in the earlier Deadspin article and think he looks rather slender and effeminate? Neither Te'o or Mauia have claimed to check 'Lennay' under the hood, so to speak. Could be that the guy dressed up as a woman and fooled both of them, wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

Anyone else look at Tuiososopo's pic in the earlier Deadspin article and think he looks rather slender and effeminate? Neither Te'o or Mauia have claimed to check 'Lennay' under the hood, so to speak. Could be that the guy dressed up as a woman and fooled both of them, wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

And the pictures of some other chick the person likely didn't look like?

KingsleyZisou:ongbok: KingsleyZisou: ongbok: NaziKamikaze: At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

I too don't understand ND's motivation to support Teo. If he is a fraud, throw him under the bus and protect the institution. I however don't think the school is "in on it." What would they have to gain from such a scheme? Maybe publicity from the Heisman campaign but that only happened in year 4 of this charade.

I think Teo had convinced the administration that he is a victim. Pathological liars will spin any situation to suit their needs. They are very good at convincing people. Just my theory though.

/this while thing is hilarious//Catfish and Lance Armstrong are doing backflips with joy today

Or he may have been really scammed by someone. And if he was it probably involved him sending them money. It could have been somebody that befriended him on Facebook or whatever and used his naivety to lead him on and con him into sending them money over the years.Then decided to go for the big score and threatened to expose the whole thing if he didn't pat up. This has been known to happen.

Sorry but I don't buy the Te'o is a victim angle. He goes to great length to keep this scam going. If he's a victim why would he do that? Once the jig is up on the scam, he can get help. What incentive does he have to perpetuate it other than the original extortion? Hell he should be sabotaging it. Instead, he helps keep it rolling along.

He has a preexisting relationship with the perp. Does that mean Manti was an easy mark? That's possible. It's also possible they corroborated.

Who blackmails a college student? Even a future pro athlete is currently poor. A scam with less effort on a better target would yield more immediate results.

Sorry but too much of this sorry points to Manti for him to be a victim.

You scam whoever is willing to send you money. People will run scams and extortion schemes on welfare recipients. If he did get scammed, whoever did it could have tried to contact dozens of different pro and college football players, Teo was just the one that responded and got caught in the web.

And why would he keep it going? Maybe because he wanted to believe it was true and that someday she would really be his girlfriend. You ever see those Nigerian scams where they get people to continuously send them money, even though the person hasn't seen any money in return and have been told by their bank that they are getting scammed, all because the person wants to believe that the lie they were told will become true? People can build up a fantasy when they are getting scammed and it can be hard for them to let that go even though they know it is a scam.

Also the reason why he kept it going after he and ND claims to have known it was a scam could be if any type of extortion was involved, the police may have gotten involved and they wanted him to keep it going.

This is if it was a scam. Personally I think it may have been some type of real correspondence between him and some girl that didn't amount to much and fizzled out, that he, and probably either ND or an agent, decided to use to create a whole fake story for PR reasons.

Bartleby the Scrivener:SlothB77: Arizona Cardinals fullback Reagan Mauia said he met Lennay Kekua in person during an outreach trip with Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers and others in June 2011.

I am curious if Polamalu was with Mauia when Mauia met Kekua.

Word on Pittsburgh radio was that Polamau was somehow involved, but it's not clear if he was with Mauia when Mauia met Kekua. There might be some sort of relationship between Polamalu and Te'o, but that does not mean that Polamalu had any information about Maiua or Kekua. It's unfortunate that we cannot ask Seau about the relationships between Polamua, Te'o, Mauai and Kekua, so we may have to ask Manu Tuiasosopo or Tui Alailefaleula.

I'm still waiting for Malauga and the Kemoeatu brothers to weigh in before I make up my mind

sigdiamond2000:If nothing else, these Manti Te'o threads will be good for playing "spot the Notre Dame alums."

It's also good for playing "spot the basement dwellers"

The story is farked up and we'll probably never really know what happened. Manti, Tuiasosopo, and whoever played Kekua in person can all give press conferences under the influence of sodium pentothal and there still going to be unanswered questions. Yet, as soon as the Deadspin story came out, there's people who now suddenly have clairvoyant insight about what really happened -- Manti was in on it, Manti is gay, the true motives were X or Y.

ATRDCI:blarkseymark: For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

----------

I'm an agnostic, so this is no defense of the Mormon or Catholic faith, but your entire premise here is, well, to be nice, "off base".

Mormons and Catholics promote chastity for heterosexuals, as well. The statement that they are "forcing" the LGBT group to "promote chastity" is in line with their religious beliefs for all of their members/students, not just teh ghey ones. As a matter of fact, it just so happens to be a tenet of MANY religions. No sex before marriage. They ask the LGBT group to adhere to those same tenets if they wish to attend the same school? The horror! Why do you have a problem with this? Do you believe LGBT have some promiscuity gene that unfairly disadvantages them from adhering to the same tenets? LGBTers are less capable of being chaste than a heterosexual person? That sounds a little prejudiced! Do you have something against LGBTers?

I don't agree with the whole chastity notion, myself, but I sure don't see a problem with "forcing" (sounds so evil) the LGBT group to follow the same rules as the rest of the school population, with regard to the religious doctrine. When they graduate and move to California or some other state that allows same-sex marriages, they can get married and have teh sex, or promote "non-chastity" in any forms they wish. But, the horror that you are implying? Meh.

Is it a shame that LGBTers can't get married in ANY state? Or, that it took 20 years for the group to be allowed to form? Sure. I could grant you th ...

The chastity thing is different when it's LGBT students than with straight students. The LGBT students aren't allowed to consider the possibility of ever getting in a committed relationship some day--chastity, as taught to LGBT students means never having any kind of sexual or even romantic contact with someone they're attracted to, not for their entire life. For straight students, chastity is a temporary thing until marriage, and marriage is the goal. Gay kids are expected to live like monks their entire lives.

I went to a religious college where pre-marital sex was a student conduct violation. It's a completely different ball of wax for gay students than straight students. Straight students get the message that sex is great, just not yet, Gay students get the message that sex is bad and should not happen ever.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple. "And we came to the realization that she could be our daughter-in-law. Sadly, it won't happen now."

This quote from the father points to Manti (family) being in on it or his father just making sh*t up. Someone suggested maybe one of the other people told the father she had been to hawaii and somehow Manti never confirmed or denied that to his father? really?

rynthetyn:I went to a religious college where pre-marital sex was a student conduct violation. It's a completely different ball of wax for gay students than straight students. Straight students get the message that sex is great, just not yet, Gay students get the message that sex is bad and should not happen ever.

Well, Colleges with sex clauses as part of their "student conduct" provisions are not known for being party schools. I assume that there was a damn good reason why no one could transfer out, was this like a college that you were sentenced to?

Donnchadha:sigdiamond2000: If nothing else, these Manti Te'o threads will be good for playing "spot the Notre Dame alums."

It's also good for playing "spot the basement dwellers"

The story is farked up and we'll probably never really know what happened. Manti, Tuiasosopo, and whoever played Kekua in person can all give press conferences under the influence of sodium pentothal and there still going to be unanswered questions. Yet, as soon as the Deadspin story came out, there's people who now suddenly have clairvoyant insight about what really happened -- Manti was in on it, Manti is gay, the true motives were X or Y.

Yay everybody, its the guy who likes to shame everyone for having a fun discussion speculating on the circumstances of a really bizarre story.

rynthetyn:The chastity thing is different when it's LGBT students than with straight students. The LGBT students aren't allowed to consider the possibility of ever getting in a committed relationship some day--chastity, as taught to LGBT students means never having any kind of sexual or even romantic contact with someone they're attracted to, not for their entire life. For straight students, chastity is a temporary thing until marriage, and marriage is the goal. Gay kids are expected to live like monks their entire lives.

I went to a religious college where pre-marital sex was a student conduct violation. It's a completely different ball of wax for gay students than straight students. Straight students get the message that sex is great, just not yet, Gay students get the message that sex is bad and should not happen ever.

From a Catholic standpoint, chastity is not temporary until marriage. There are still rules dictating chastity within marriage which is where you get all the weird rules about Catholic sex. You do not get carte blanche to all sexual relations just because you're married -- no contraceptives, husband must "finish" inside the wife (in the right hole too), no masturbation or other forms of fornication, etc.. Chastity is not about "not having sex" but "not having immoral sex". For single people or gay people there is no moral sex, so chastity = no sex at all.

Maybe the chick whose pictures were used, including one she mailed to Tuiososopa herself with a handwritten sign is the picture) was in on it. She did concede T. was an old friend she knew from high school years. If she hung out with T. she could have been in on it. On the other hand, this "sighting" might have been more just that instead of a meeting, with T. making up a new backstory for her all by himself.

Anyone else look at Tuiososopo's pic in the earlier Deadspin article and think he looks rather slender and effeminate? Neither Te'o or Mauia have claimed to check 'Lennay' under the hood, so to speak. Could be that the guy dressed up as a woman and fooled both of them, wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

And the pictures of some other chick the person likely didn't look like?

Haven't seen the pictures of the girl, since most of them have been taken down now. I came late to this party.

It all depends on what pictures were used and how similar/dissimilar the faces are. After all, how many pictures of yourself have you looked at (Driver's License photos included) and said 'That doesn't quite look like me...'

I'm not saying that the guy pulled a Mrs. Doubtfire, just that it's a possible scenario.